


The night shift

by irisdouglasiana



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Early Relationship Fluff, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-21 22:05:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17650757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisdouglasiana/pseuds/irisdouglasiana
Summary: Daniel had discovered a great many things about Peggy Carter in the few short weeks since she had arrived in Los Angeles, but one unexpectedly charming thing about her that he was just learning tonight was that she snored. Loudly.





	The night shift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelsunknown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsunknown/gifts).



Daniel had discovered a great many things about Peggy Carter in the few short weeks since she had arrived in Los Angeles—that she was a _fantastic_ kisser was naturally the highlight, but also that she had never eaten an avocado or been really badly sunburnt, both of which had since been rectified—but another unexpectedly charming thing about her that he was just learning tonight was that she snored. Loudly.

He really should have told her to go back to Stark’s mansion and get some rest hours ago. Hell, he should have gone home himself. It was well past one in the morning and the office had long cleared out except for the two of them, plus Stevens and Yee on the usual night shift. Between finishing up the Isodyne case and being immediately plunged into the mystery of Jack’s shooting, he knew his whole team was running on empty, and he had been so absorbed in his work that he hadn’t even noticed Peggy had fallen asleep until he heard her snoring in the next room.

From the window in his office, he could see that she had put her head down on the temporary desk they had given her and nodded off, report still in hand. Daniel stood up rather stiffly—he was always forgetting he needed to stretch every now and then—reached for his crutch, and wandered over to her desk. Peggy’s hair fell in loose waves across her face and her mouth was hanging open with a bit of drool running down her chin. He almost didn’t want to wake her.

He touched her shoulder gently. “Peggy.”

“Hmm? Daniel?” she asked sleepily, blinking at him a few times before straightening up. She rubbed her eyes and quickly wiped away the drool. “I wasn’t sleeping.” 

He raised his eyebrows. “You were snoring, Carter.”

“I was not,” she protested weakly, but he could tell that for once, she wasn’t about to fight him.

“It’s pretty late. Think I’m gonna hit the hay myself,” he said, stifling a yawn. Before he lost his leg, he had been able to run for days on just a few hours of sleep without consequences, but now his body had all sorts of new and unpleasant ways to tell him that was a bad idea. “The work will still be here in the morning. You want a ride back to Stark’s place?”

She glanced at her watch. “That would be lovely,” she said, almost shyly. “It _is_ a bit past Mr. Jarvis’s bedtime. Nine o’clock sharp,” she added.

“Uh huh,” he said. Daniel watched as she attempted to pat her hair back into place and suddenly he had a picture in his mind about what it would be like to wake up next to her in the morning, with her hair askew and that sleepy smile on her face…

“Well, shall we go?” she asked him as she shrugged on her coat and picked up her purse, breaking his reverie. “Daniel?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” he said quickly. He turned away and hoped she hadn’t noticed him blushing. He gave his final instructions to Stevens and Yee for the night and then followed Peggy down the stairs and out to the street. Even for Los Angeles, it was a warm night, and the air felt perfectly still, almost muggy. All of the businesses had closed hours ago except for a diner or two, and the red and yellow lights illuminated the sidewalk in front of them as they headed towards Daniel’s car. He had always liked seeing the city transform as the sun went down, both here and back in New York; after he had recovered enough from his injury he had sometimes liked to go out for walks at night, just to clear his head. But it was definitely better with company.  

“Chief Dooley never allowed me to take a night shift,” Peggy said as she settled in to the passenger seat of Daniel’s car and he started the engine. “He thought it was inappropriate for a woman.”

“Don’t think you missed out on much,” he said. “Except for the occasional pleasure of Krzeminski’s company, I guess.”

“What a shame,” she snorted. “I recall you worked the night shift often. Holidays and weekends too.”

“Yeah, I volunteered for it,” he answered, surprised that she remembered. “Came in early, stayed late. I wanted to prove I could pull my own weight, I guess. Dooley got on my case a few times for it.” He had resented it back then; he had thought it meant Dooley doubted his abilities. Now that he was chief, he could see it in a different light. Exhausted agents made mistakes. So did exhausted chiefs.

“I understand,” she said. “I suppose I felt the same way much of the time, back in New York. But perhaps things can be different now.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that; wasn’t sure what she meant by _different_ , so he nodded and focused on his driving, turning from Vine to Sunset to Beverly Glen, following the winding road towards Stark’s mansion. For all the time he had spent with her over the past few weeks, even after that kiss, they hadn’t talked about this…whatever they were doing now. They had talked about how they needed to talk about it, but then one crisis had happened after another and there just hadn’t been time. Or maybe she was nervous. He sure as hell was, because he wanted her to stay, and if she didn’t, if she returned to New York—well, then maybe it wasn’t meant to be. And part of him didn’t want to find that out just yet, but the other part of him had to know. 

“Peggy…” he began, and then stopped when he snuck a glance at her and realized she had nodded off again.

Her head jerked up. “Hm?”

He shook his head. “Never mind.”

She rubbed her eyes. “Bloody hell, I must be more tired than I thought.”

“It’s not just you,” Daniel said, trying not to yawn as he pulled up in front of Stark’s darkened mansion and parked the car. “Well, now you can say you’ve fallen asleep on the night shift.”

“I suppose I can,” she said with a wry grin. She opened the car door halfway and hesitated, and then leaned back in and kissed him. It was a long, slow kiss, this time, without the urgency of their first, and all the sweeter for it.

“Different, huh?” he murmured, when she finally pulled away. His face felt hot and he was glad it was too dark for her to see him blushing.

“Different,” she repeated as took her purse and stepped out of the car. In the moonlight, it was hard to see her expression, but he could tell she was smiling. “Good night, Daniel. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Daniel waited until she had gone inside and closed the door before turning the car around and heading back the way he came. Tomorrow, maybe, he’d ask her what she meant by different. Tomorrow was full of promises and dreams; it held the possible and impossible alike. But for now, in that moment, from Beverly Glen to Sunset Boulevard, from Hollywood to Los Feliz, flying through the streets of that beautiful, sleeping city, he thought about that kiss all the way home.


End file.
